While EUC can be a very useful option for many businesses, allowing them to avoid high expenses, time and energy spent on programmed applications, it still comes with its own risks.
These applications are often created outside of a fully managed, properly rigorous environment leading to a host of potential problems. These include lack of corporate visibility, difficulty of usage by those not familiar with them, insufficient documentation, poor or nonexistent audit trail, and, in some cases, not fully tested or validated performance.
If the EUC is Excel based, then further issues such as unsecured IP, unmanaged replication and version confusion, and propagation of errors might further diminish their usefulness. So, while EUC can provide high value to an organization, the resulting shortcomings can diminish or, in some cases, negate the overall benefit they bring.
All of these potential risks grow the more complex your EUC is. Using spreadsheets, for instance, can be an incredible way for businesses to keep and analyze information, but as we get used to them it’s easy to forget the many dangers that they may entail.
Another significant factor determining the level of risk involved with EUC is the purpose to which it is applied. For example, financial operations may require extreme diligence, meaning that errors can be far more hazardous for your business. Incorporating different systems, multiple rows, or even simply a lacking reviewing process can result in danger for you and your company.
As many of these tools are used to contain precious data, it is crucial that the risks are accounted for if your organization chooses to employ an EUC solution.
